According to one psychological hypothesis, marriage (or at least long-term sexual relationships) is the only thing that allows cooperative behavior to spring up in a species the first place.
I agree with this statement. Marriage should be a religious convention, not some government-recognized institution for the purpose of taxation.
Although I have strong views about what constitutes “marriage” (being a “BibleLibertarian” and all that), I believe that tying such a religious concept to government red tape destroys the sacredness and value of it. Too many religious people are confusing a government license with divine consecration. Too many “secular people” get a marriage license for tax benefits and then have to jump through the divorce court hoops when problems arise.
Get rid of the legal incentives for marriage and the costs of the divorce baggage will be reduced. Leave marriage for us religious people to practice.
Read Mises’ Socialism, also from the chapter on Christianity and Socialism and the relevant sections on marriage in The Social Order and the Family, especially Marriage Under the Influence of the Idea of Contract.
Leave marriage for us religious people to practice.
Marriage is not just for the religious, especially not just for those adhering to the Christian homophobic conception of union.
There are no bible libertarians. There are libertarians who follow the bible, the quran, daoism, or no religion, but libertarianism is a political view free of values, and allows others to live their lives the way they would like with no force. The state should not even have legal codes for marriage, I should be able to “marry” whatever gender, and however many people, as long as it’s not aggression. People should be able to call it whatever they like. A gay Atheist need not to join a church to get married, and a Muslim man should be able to marry 4 wives if they all consent. Legal codes for marriage is tyranny.
In defense of BibleLibertarian, I don’t thank that “Libertarian Who Follows the Bible” would be quite as catchy a user name.
I’ll quote the rest of your post since its so great.
An article of interest: gay marriage sucks.
So what happens when a conservative hotel owner gets sued under anti-discrimination laws for refusing to rent out his honeymoon suite to two dudes with a marriage license from the state?
Interesting article.
Precisely why I hate Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I don’t understand hate crime laws. Clearly, if you commit a crime against someone, you hate them. Or you sure as hell don’t like them. Either way, thanks for posting the article.
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. The reason that “marriage” is such a hot-button social issue is precisely because of the fact that there are government ties.
I was trying to clarify that the government should be totally out of the recognition/question/regulation of “marriage.” Leave such a concept only to religious groups to practice as they see fit, with absolutely no recognition of this union from the government.
If anyone wants some form of government involvement in their union (gay, straight, etc.), they would create a civil union contract so that the government would enforce the terms. If religious people who have their own “sacred” idea of marriage wish to have contractual recognition, they can do likewise.
We don’t need the government to define “marriage” according to the ideas of any particular religious group. We don’t need the government to recognize “marriage” for tax and medical purposes. Just get rid of these government incentives for “marriage” and leave the religious idea of “marriage” being a divinely-recognized union between a man and a woman to the religious. Keep the sacred “marriage” covenant totally free from government involvement of any kind.
The whole idea of trying to lobby the government to define “marriage” for everyone just destroys the sacredness and purity that religious groups really want.
Well, I find that doubtful to say the least. Should there be nothing to be gained by the division of labor (the real hero ad society-builder) beyond, say, the kinship level, we’d all be marrying our cousins right now and there would be a feud of all clans against all. And than again, don’t some animals too enjoy long-term sexual relationships (the Australian dingo comes to mind)? Still there is no visible division of labor in the animal kingdom.
But the above is irrelevant to my point. I’m not against marriage as two adults of opposite sexes living together, pooling their economic recourses, giving birth to and raising children. That has indeed proved to be by far the best social building block we know of (so far, at least).
What I’m against is ‘legalistic’ marriage, the signing of a piece of paper whereas some mystical authority now acknowledges my marriage. This is stupid, and sounds a lot like asking permission to the state to marry.
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. The reason that “marriage” is such a hot-button social issue is precisely because of the fact that there are government ties.
I was trying to clarify that the government should be totally out of the recognition/question/regulation of “marriage.” Leave such a concept only to religious groups to practice as they see fit, with absolutely no recognition of this union from the government.
If anyone wants some form of government involvement in their union (gay, straight, etc.), they would create a civil union contract so that the government would enforce the terms. If religious people who have their own “sacred” idea of marriage wish to have contractual recognition, they can do likewise.
We don’t need the government to define “marriage” according to the ideas of any particular religious group. We don’t need the government to recognize “marriage” for tax and medical purposes. Just get rid of these government incentives for “marriage” and leave the religious idea of “marriage” being a divinely-recognized union between a man and a woman to the religious. Keep the sacred “marriage” covenant totally free from government involvement of any kind.
The whole idea of trying to lobby the government to define “marriage” for everyone just destroys the sacredness and purity that religious groups really want.
I’m not misunderstanding. In fact, you stated what I have an issue with again. Yes, keep government out of marriage or anything. Then keep the “religious” people out of having a monopoly on the practice of marriage. No amount of Sunday hokum pokeys is going to isolate the human practice of marriage to your own guidelines.
Why would a secularist want to hold the idea that “marriage” is a divinely-recognized union between a man and a woman?
Sure it will. Marriage as he understands it. No number of marriage ceremonies at weird cults and strange institutions is going to mean that you are actually married where conservatives are consulted.
Why would a secularist want to hold the idea that “marriage” is a divinely-recognized union between a man and a woman?
Semantics. You can call partnership contracts “a marriage” as you want, or you can call it other name. Problem is government granted privilege. Not a “marriage” which has evolved long time ago and changed, just like JUDEO-CHRISTIAN VALUES has changed, since they don’t advocate beating wives and children or killing slaves etc…Even though it’s in the Bible and will be probably for-ever.
So marriage is just a word. You can asign a “divinely-recognized union” to it, or you can asign a simple partnership contract. I think secularists would choose the latter. Religious people would choose the former.
Sure it will. Marriage as he understands it. No number of marriage ceremonies at weird cults and strange institutions is going to mean that you are actually married where conservatives are consulted.
Well this is him crawling out of a cave and talking with the people at large then, whatever.
A homosexual couple wants to get married who are members of the Church of Satan. I think Christian morals and values won’t apply to this. “It’s blasphemy!”, well of course. Now, they are subscribing to their own rituals and ceremonies, what’s the role of the government to decide that two individuals can’t be married if they are now claiming it as a non-hetero custom?
When did the [Christian] church and government get a monopoly over marriage? (Rhetorical question)